Machine for preparing feathers for dusters



' (No Model.)

J. J. SANDS.

MACHINE FOR PREPARING FEATHERS FOR DUSTERS. No. 398,850. Patented Mar. 5, 1889.

7 7" 6 f lliHll I i n; I!

UNTTnn STATES PATENT Orricn.

JOSIAS J. SANDS, OF HARTLAND, WISCONSIN.

MACl-llNE FOR PREPARING FEATHERS FOR DUSTERS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 398,850, dated March 5, 1889.

Application filed December 11, 1886. Serial No- 221,247. (No model.)

To all whom it may concci'ur Be it known that I, J OSIAS J. SANDS, a citizen of the United States, residing in Hartland, in the county of Waukesha and State of Wisconsin, have invented a new and useful Illllll'OVClllOili} in Machines for Preparing Feathers for Dusters, oi which the following is a specification.

together with a portion of the pith, taken away. This renders the feathers soft and pliable; but it is also desirable to remove the ,1 residue of the pith, because by so doing the i quills are rendered even more soft and pliable than before, and the brush made from them is lightened in weight. It has heretofore been customary, in order to obviate this objection,

to pass the split feathers through a machine i having a rapidly-revolving sand-paper or corrugated roller operating upon the pith side of the quill for the purpose of removing all the adhering pith. After the removal of the pith the feather requires to be curled. This is usually a manual operation, and is done by drawing the feather, while bent, around a small rod with the outside of the quill bearing upon the rod. The curl so imparted is the reverse of the natural curl, so that the feat-her, which in its natural state curls or bends inward, will after this treatment curl or bend outward.

In my present invention 1 have endeavored to combine these two operationsviz., removing the pith from the split feather and the curling-into one operation, and to render that one entirely automatic; and Iaccomplish this object by use of the mechanism hereinafter described and claimed, which will be fully understood from the accompanying drawings, wherein- Figure 1 is a plan view of my improved machine; Fig. 2, a diagrammatic sectional view of the same, and Fig. 3 a like sectional view of a modified form thereof.

I feed the feathers to the machine tip end first and with the pith side uppermost, employing for that purpose, preferably, two ordinary positively-driven feed-rolls, A A. By this feed the feather is delivered over a small idle-roller, B, and under a stationary deflecting-guide, C, and by the latter it is caused to y bend around said idle-roller and follow its curvature until caught by a rapidly-moving sand-paper cylinder, D, preferably several times the diameter of the idle-roller and located under the latter. The feather, which is now doubled into U form for a short time, is 1 pulled along by the roughened surface of the cylinder until it has passed entirely beyond the same, but is held from any acceleration of speed by the grasp of the feed devices so long as that grasp continues. During its passage under the idle-roller, between which and i the cylinder it is squeezed to some extent, it is deprived of the adhering pith, and during i this cleaning operation the pulling force exerted by the cylinder draws it tight against the rounded surface of the idle-roll and sets it with the desired curl, which fits it for immediate binding to the head, and which it retains after it has been discharged from the machine, the operation being somewhat analogous to that exerted in the manual curling operation before referred to. After the feed devices have been passed, so they no longer control the feather, its travel will be quick- I encd; but it will still be detained somewhat by its bent condition and be sufliciently cleaned at its rear or stem end. This completes the operation, and the feather when discharged from the sand-paper cylinder may be allowed to fall by its own weight into a proper receptacle.

The rolls A and the cylinder D are positively driven at a relative speed of about one hundred for the former to about one thousand for the latter per minute, the former being one and one fourth inch and the latter four inches in diameter. These proportions may of course be very materially varied.

The path of the feather and the direction of rotation of the moving parts are appropriately indicated by arrows.

Appropriate means for actuating the cylinder and rollers are indicated in the drawings, (Z upon the shaft of the cylinder D being the primary driving-pulley, a. a belt carrying motion from pulley f, also upon the shaft of cylinder D, to pulley g upon the shaft of one of the rollers A, and h a gear, also upon the shaft of said belt-actuated roller A, meshing with a similar gear on the shaft of the other roller A.

In the form of the invention shown in Fig. 2 the feed-rolls are placed with their meeting plane coincident with the meeting plane of the idle-roll and the sand-paper cylinder. In order to secure the passage of the feather from the feed-rolls to the top of the idle-roll, an inclined floor, a, is placed under the path of travel. The feather, which is fed from the table E, passes from the feed along this inclined floor to the top of roll B and under guide 0, and is bent down and around said roll by the latter. Its tip is now caught by the cylinder D and carried between it and the roll and while passing between "these it is cleaned of the pith and curled, as already stated. It is then discharged in a condition ready Without further treatment to be bound to the duster-head. n

In the modification, Fig. 3, the meeting plane of the feed-rolls is upon a level with the top of the idle-roller, and this enables me to place such rolls in closerproximity to the latter, and also to dispense with the inclined floor, the feather being directed straightway into the space between the idle-roller and the defleeting-guide. This form of the machine is perhaps to be preferred to the other, because the feed-rolls retain control of the feather to a later stage in its passage through the machine.

The roller B, I have used as an idle-roller, with only its friction and inertia to resist motion, and it turns in obedience to the power exerted upon it by the sand-paper cylinder and feather. It may, however, be actuated at a slow speed by power, or friction may be put upon it to make it turn less easily, or it may be held against all motion if made smooth-surfaced.

I claim- 1. The combination, with the feed-rolls, of the idle-roller, the guide 0, acting to double the feather around said roller, and a sand-pa- \Vitnesses:

EDW. S. EVARTS, H. M. MUN AY. 

